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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23224306">shades of you</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/euphemea/pseuds/euphemea'>euphemea</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Amnesiac!Sylvain, Angst, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Inspired by Art, M/M, crest experiments sylvain, no beta we die like Glenn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 11:35:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,218</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23224306</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/euphemea/pseuds/euphemea</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Once or twice, Felix thought he’d seen a spark of recognition behind Sylvain’s artless facade, found flickering faith in a sidelong glance or the lean of lips teetering against inner turmoil, but nothing had ever come of it, and he’d had to let his dreams and memories fall to ash, again and again, until nothing remained but the cold truth that Sylvain didn’t know him. </p><p>He couldn’t remember any of them, but least of all Felix.</p><p>~~</p><p>Inspired by <a href="https://twitter.com/vwyn19">@vwyn19's</a> Crest Experiments Sylvain, and <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23215366">akhikosanada's ficlet</a>.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>214</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Sylvix Squad Super Stories</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>shades of you</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23215366">all my thoughts of you, bullets through rotten fruit</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/akhikosanada/pseuds/akhikosanada">akhikosanada</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>cha wrote a lovely angsty piece earlier today, so i'm adding my bit to it (a felix prequel)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Sylvain looks at Felix, it’s like he’s looking through glass. </p><p>No, that’s not right. That’s how Sylvain <em> used </em> to look at Felix, back when they first arrived at the Officer’s Academy. Back before the war had made monsters of men and animals of kings, back when the ice of Sylvain’s hair had frozen Felix’s blood and Felix would still have believed his friend lost to time if not for his name. Sylvain had looked at Felix like he was just another thoughtless and useless noble trying to scramble his way up the infantile Crest hierarchy—his gaze had slid through Felix, his laughter burning with the frostbite of Gautier’s frigid north. Another empty face, another fleeting presence, another lukewarm body to warm Sylvain’s ice-cold bed. Sylvain had flirted with him, had tried to toy with Felix’s wrought-iron heart, had called him “cutie” and “sweetheart” and all manner of other drivel, right up until the point Felix had drawn his sword and settled it under Sylvain’s chin, fire flashing in his eyes. </p><p>The warning hadn’t worked, because of course it hadn’t. Even the Sylvain of Felix’s childhood had been resilient, though in a completely different way. If anything, the denial had made Sylvain’s teasing worse—had driven him further into the chase. Everything had been a <em> game </em> to Sylvain. A gambit to see how far he could push Felix before he’d crack and make good on his threats or before he’d cave and fall into Sylvain’s arms.</p><p>But only as a conquest, and never as a friend; Sylvain’s eyes had remained as blank as the empty canvas of his now-ashen hair. </p><p>Once or twice, Felix thought he’d seen a spark of recognition behind Sylvain’s artless facade, found flickering faith in a sidelong glance or the lean of lips teetering against inner turmoil, but nothing had ever come of it, and he’d had to let his dreams and memories fall to ash, again and again, until nothing remained but the cold truth that Sylvain didn’t know him. </p><p>He couldn’t remember any of them, but least of all Felix.</p><p>He was no longer burning, affection-laden crimson, reduced instead to an ugly shade of grotesque, ghastly white; his only remaining color lay in irises that once sang of honey and joy, now deadened, sepia coals.</p><p>Sylvain had no recollection of a promise to die side by side, to stay together until the Faerghus winters borne of their bones carried them home to rest.</p><p>That was then. Five years ago: the first time Felix had seen Sylvain after he’d mysteriously stopped replying to Felix’s letters. Suddenly back, after seven years of absence, like he hadn’t vanished—like he hadn’t missed Felix’s earth crumbling below him as he first lost Sylvain and then his brother and Dimitri. </p><p>Except Sylvain’s reappearance made it worse, because he couldn’t <em> remember </em> Felix, couldn’t remember any of them, and he made that disremembrance seem real. Felix had been angry—he’d wanted to rail at Sylvain for daring to walk back into his life like he’d never left, never been gone, never walked out in the first place. But Sylvain hadn’t walked back in at all. He’d only been <em> around</em> , just another student at Felix’s side, never really <em> by </em> Felix’s side. Felix might as well have been a ghost dancing in Sylvain’s periphery, as ephemeral and colorless as the cold off-white of Sylvain’s lifeless hair.</p><p>At seventeen, Felix had wondered if he’d ever see warm red—soft and downy, the color of burgeoning hope and childhood love—once more, or if it had truly faded to stark, empty gray.</p><p>Now, at least, after five grueling years of wars and endless battles bled together, Sylvain doesn’t look at Felix like he’s looking through him anymore. He looks at Felix and sees… a companion, maybe, an ally; his eyes meet Felix’s, and he finds someone who hasn’t betrayed his hard-won trust yet. Sylvain doesn’t remember their childhood, but he hasn’t forgotten their time at the academy, and Felix holds on to that one last tether in the sea of slow, sinking despair—adrift in the tide of war but with the anchor of building something new pulling him back to shore. </p><p>Felix seeks out white the way he once followed red, letting it catch his eyes as he turns, heart full and fair and liable to skip a beat when one particular bastard smiles. But ever betrayed by nostalgia, even a whisper of distant red still wrecks him and rips his carefully-forged walls to shreds. He never means to stop, but the cardinals and corals and carmines hum bittersweet melodies, and he finds himself unable to resist their siren song.</p><p><em> Was this the one? </em> </p><p>Felix turns the poppy over in his palm, flower-seller’s eager exaltations of its beauty washing over him. It’s wrong—too bright, too vibrant, too loud. Sylvain’s red was bold, not orange like Aegir or Pinelli or Annette, but never obnoxiously so. Not like this flower. He drops the blossom carelessly back into the seller’s pile of frivolities, cataloging the failure away. </p><p>He hasn’t found the right red yet, but he swore to himself that he would. Promised it to no one, voiceless this time so that only he can break it. He’s tried a hundred different shades, and he’ll discover a thousand more, and ten thousand beyond that, until he finds the one to unlock Sylvain’s past.</p><p>(He’d asked about that past, once. </p><p>“Was your hair always that color?”</p><p>Sylvain had grinned at him, brittle and hard and fake, fake, fake. He’d cooed and leaned in, voice dripping in sneering, saccharine cruelty. “Why? Like the look? You don’t have to pretend, I know I pull it off well.”</p><p>“Forget it.” </p><p>Sylvain had laughed after him, voice ringing and conscience clear as Felix stormed away, another chance to reclaim their promise as dead as the joyless alabaster adorning Sylvain’s idiotic fucking head.)</p><p>Some days it feels like his mind plays tricks, like everything he can remember is a lie. Sylvain’s hair had always been silvery white. Sylvain had always had a Major Crest of Gautier. The childhood spent together had been nothing more than a wishful fantasy woven in unreality.</p><p>But unlike Sylvain, Felix knows and remembers. He remembers, and he cradles that truth, holds it close to his chest, confirms it over and over with the letters of his childhood and the tomes of Ingrid’s memory.</p><p>He picks up another flower—a spider lily, the card proclaims. Less raucous than the last, but still—it isn’t right. Felix lets it fall away, another tally of what still stands lost.</p><p>Ahead, Sylvain turns back, a questioning look in his eyes. They're a little less dull these days; less drab, less barren, but tired, and still missing the kind affection of Felix’s childhood. </p><p>“Who would have thought you’d like flowers so much, Felix?” </p><p>The grin is there, quieter and less strained, closer to honest, but not close enough.</p><p>“Shut up,” Felix says, turning fully back to horrible, unearthly, familiar white. With a huff, he follows, leaving this futile attempt behind. </p><p>Over and over, Felix digs and digs, searches for the rusty red of bygone years eroded to dust, searches for a wish and a glimmer of clarity. Searches, desperately, before the war wins and they’re both out of time.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>find me on twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/euphemeas">@euphemeas</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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